Hello and goodbye

Ruffy Magbanua

IT will be hello and goodbye for now to Imperial Manila as all roads lead to Davao these days.

And goodbye would also mean holding office away from the luxury and comfort of Malacanang, the country’s seat of power.

Digong “The Punisher,” as Time magazine calls him, reportedly prefers to stay in his hometown Davao than the riotous Manila because he finds it  awkward and uneasy to live a kingly life amid a nation besieged with corruption, lawlessness and political divide.

In the next six years or so, Imperial Manila would surely be a thing of the past as presumptive president-elect Digong Duterte is hell-bent in putting a stop to a fully centralized government.

Duterte will replace it with people-centered, no-nonsense kind of governance the elite would perhaps find offbeat and non-conventional.

And the change the people wanted is now slowly grinding to the max as netizens watch up close the latest developments from the new presidential address: Davao City.

All eyes are now trained in this southern city, now agog with a macrocosm of wannabes wanting to get juicy posts, hordes of party supporters and the press, among others.

Always at his trademark oddity,  Duterte’s first face-off with the national media was held shortly after resurfacing from a well-deserved hiatus.

His return to the limelight signaled the start of a gargantuan task in nation-building.

Again, the outgoing mayor of Davao outlined his agenda and the first order of the day was the pronouncement of who would occupy the cabinet posts that would be vacated soon by the Aquino administration.

Duterte, a self-confessed “leftist,” even made a striking announcement by offering cabinet posts to the Communist Party led by Jose Ma. Sison,  the mayor’s erstwhile law professor at the Lyceum of the Philippines.

With Duterte’s invitation to the Reds to join his administration, many believe  would result in the cementing of a just and lasting peace in the land.

The country’s insurgency problem is said to be the longest running in Asia.

Citing the Davao experience, Duterte plans to impose curfew on minors and at the same time, empower local governments to stamp out noisy karaoke sessions.

The seven-term mayor has successfully imposed curfew in Davao requiring those who are 18 years old and below not to loiter in the streets between 10 pm to 5 am unless accompanied by their parents or guardians of legal age.

Davao’s curfew for minors, the no-smoking rule in public places and the imposition of liquor ban were severely criticized at first by the local business community.

But it was quickly accepted and has become trademark legislations being copied by local governments all over the country.

He likewise declared a relentless war against crime and illegal drugs, and vowed to bring back the death penalty by asking Congress to reintroduce the capital punishment probably by hanging in public.

So there you are, fellas. We now have a fearless, tough-talking president from Mindanao. We now have a president-elect who is doubly mad at corrupt government officials warning them to get out from the service before June 30.

We now have a nocturnal president who’s afraid of ghosts in Malacanang. And we now have a Bisdak president who refuses to use the presidential yacht, planes and cars.

Imperial Manila,  take it or leave it.

E-mail: ruffy44_ph2000@yahoo.com